Question

Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
Mabel: [Utterly surprised] Ronny! Do they want me in Court?
Dancy: No.
Mabel: What is it, then? Why are you back?
Dancy: Spun.
Mabel: [Blank] Spun? What do you mean? What’s spun?
Dancy: The case. They’ve found out through those notes.
Mabel: Oh [Staring at his face] Who?
(i) Where are Mabel and Dancy at this time? What was Mabel doing just before this conversation? 
(ii) Why did Mabel say, “Do they want me in court?” Explain the meaning of spun in the extract? 
(iii) What ‘notes’ is Dancy talking about now?. How does Mabel react immediately after the extract”: 
(iv) Dancy leaves a note for his best friend towards the end of the play. What is the name of his best friend? What is written in the note?
(v) What does Dancy do at the end? Why does he do that? What is your opinion of Mabel and Dancy? 

Answer 1

(i) Mabel and Dancy are in their sitting room. Mabel was sitting alone on a sofa with a newspaper on her lap and inhaling the Smelling-Salts with staring eyes.
(ii) Mabel say, “Do they want me in court”, because she Suddenly sees Dancy entering the room, while he was supposed to be in the court for his case.
Spun in the extract means finished, which Dancy says to Mabel while referring to his case.
(iii) Dancy is talking about the notes which he has stolen from De Levis’ pocketbook.  As soon as Mabel came to know that Dancy has stolen De Levis’ money, she buries her face in the pillows of the sofa in a horrified quietness. She asked Dancy that why he has not told her about the truth of the theft.
Dancy’s best Mend name is Colford.
(iv) In the note, it is written that this step of Dancy is very cruel to Mabel but this is the only way to save his honour. Dancy also wrote, he is again taking a desperate step of suicide after the one he has taken to jump from one balcony to another. At the end of the note, he asked Colford to look after Mabel.
(v) At the end, Dancy shot himself by a pistol. He do this to save his honour.
Mabel represents the noblest form of wifely loyalty to her husband. She knows her that her husband had married her without telling her about his earlier love affair. She knows that he has stolen money and has been deveiving her all along. Even then her loyalty remains firm as a rock. Under no circumstances would she desert him.
Dancy is loyal to his own conception of a manly, adventurous dare-devil type of life. He wants to live dangerously. That is why he took the risk of jumping from one balcony to the other twice. That also explains why he shot himself when he was trapped.